War
by Guardian-381
Summary: FF6: Celes and Leo begin to question the war to which they have devoted their lives.


Dedication: For Snow Duchess and Elessar, for sticking with these stories and reviewing them so flatteringly.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Final Fantasy VI. In addition, "War" is the title of a song by Jonatha Brooke, which inspired this piece.

**War**

**Celes**

Every morning is the same. I wake up, dress in an uncomfortable uniform, and go to eat thin gruel at a table with forty-nine male trainees. My unique training program occupies me until dinner, after which I retire to my cell of a chamber to study. Finally, I sleep, and the next day, this cycle repeats.

This is my life, in the service of the Empire. I barely recall that anything else exists, and cannot imagine anything more.

**Leo**

Every morning, on my way to the Imperial Palace, I stop to salute the rose banners that hang beside its gates. Though most of the world's population would spit upon them, and many of those who hide behind the power they represent treat them as an unpleasant necessity, I always execute this small token of reverence. It is not the Imperial flag that I salute, but rather what it represents for me, the crimson of the blood that I have seen spilt in its service by too-willing soldiers. The ideal of the Empire was enough for them to lay down their lives for its advancement, and it is their bravery, their faith, that I recall each time my hand touches my brow.

For the rest of the day, I listen to Gestahl proclaim his philosophy of the new world order, his dream of a world built on the foundation of the mysterious power he calls 'Magitek'. Sometimes, I am called upon to proclaim it myself, though these occasions have become less frequent of late. It seems that there are less people to convince.

Perhaps, like myself, they have come to hold the truth of Gestahl's promises to be self-evident.

**Celes**

We have been at war for as long as I can remember.

No matter how many victories we achieve, or how many nations sign treaties in Gestahl's conference room, there is always another opponent to our rule, another ignorant hamlet that refuses to yield to the progress we offer.

I want to make the world a better place. I can think of no other reason to wield power, much less to pursue it as intensely as I do each day: selflessly, self-destructively. I want to become strong enough to change the world.

If I can only make that dream a reality, there will be no further reason to fight.

**Leo**

Being a general is the hardest job I can imagine.

It's not simply the responsibility, though that can be crushing: it's not the constant displacement, or the feeling of losing yourself in the gears of far greater machinations. Rather, it is what comes once all the responsibility has been satisfied, when there is no time left for thought on either side.

It is hardest when there is nothing left to do but watch.

More and more days seem to find me in a tent, somewhere far from Vector, with a group of young men prepared to march to their deaths. Granted, since the advent of Magitek weaponry, the casualties on our side have dwindled nearly far enough to create the illusion of our invincibility, but the cost of this dubious mercy has been the exponential increase in the horrifically-destroyed corpses that trail in our wake.

During his speeches, Gestahl speaks of the many advantages that Magitek offers to the common people. In practice, however, all Magitek has improved so far is our ability to mete out death to those people, those whom we were supposed to help.

I still believe in Gestahl, but each day, I see another facet of the Returners' viewpoint.

**Celes**

During the first few days of my training, I was taken by my teachers to see a jailed Returner captain. Looking back, he cannot have been more than thirty years old, though I saw his face only through brief glimpses between the bars: insanity had made him quite frantic by that time. My teachers had explained his crime to me; they had told me that he would die for it, because he was a dangerous criminal, and I had accepted their explanation as the absolute truth. Of course, this man deserved nothing but death: one had only to look at him to realize that he was but an animal, and from there it was logical that he should be treated as a dog who has turned on its master.

Some nights, I dream of this memory, and each time I awaken from its clutches, my teachers sound less believable.

I have begun to question, despite the warnings against such an activity. I have begun to wonder just what that essential quality, which makes us superior and them expendable, could be. No matter how deeply I ponder, however, or how many books I read, I am no closer to an answer than I was before the question had even crossed my mind, before I even thought of examining the moral codes that I have been nursed on.

Still, I follow the Empire's commands. I know nothing else.

**Leo**

Recently, I met the girl called Terra for the first time.

Gestahl introduced her to us at a banquet that he had held for just that purpose, and to which every officer of higher rank than 'Captain' was invited. Many commented on her green hair, so alien that it could not possibly be natural: some even went so far as to mention the glazed look in her eyes, and whisper rumours about the Slave Crown technology Kefka is supposedly developing. I saw these things, certainly, but they are not what stood out for me; when I looked at Terra, I saw only a frail girl, barely a teenager, and wondered what she was doing in my world when she seemed barely strong enough to be a kitchen maid.

It was only when the man beside me whispered the word "Esper" that I understood the depth of Gestahl's ruthlessness, and Kefka's cruelty.

On a battlefield, no one is innocent. Anyone who holds a weapon is prepared to kill, and you are faced with the choice of mirroring their goals or losing your life to them. There is no pity among soldiers, and precious little sympathy. Terra, on the other hand, is the closest thing to an innocent that I have seen since I joined the Empire, and the thought that such a woman, for that is what she will be forced to become, should be forced onto the frontlines sickens me. As long as the image of her piloting Magitek armour remains in my mind, I find myself unable to even think beyond the questions that fly through my mind as quickly as lives are reaped by an Ice Beam.

And so, I do my best to forget her, and continue my servitude. I can do nothing else.

**Celes**

Tomorrow, I go to destroy Maranda.

I have been appropriately briefed by a number of more experienced commanders. I have been reassured that, even if I should make a grave mistake, the soldiers who are being sent with me will perform their task flawlessly. I have been told that I should attempt to sleep, as though this were any other night, as though all that awaits me tomorrow is an extension of my usual existence.

Despite these admonitions, however, I am utterly incapable of rest.

I wonder why Maranda is such a threat, when the economic records state that they can barely keep themselves fed. I wonder what resistance can be expected from such a place. I wonder what they have done to incur Gestahl's wrath, to earn the privilege of staring into the glowing pit of a charged Magitek cannon.

I can answer none of these musings, and so I banish them from my mind. Surely, if they cannot be answered, they are unworthy of consideration.

Surely, everything will be clear tomorrow.

**Leo**

I arrive at the palace balcony as Celes enters the gates of Vector, and take stock of her forces automatically. By my rough estimate, she has not lost a single one, and my mouth tenses into a horizontal line. At least she will not have to face the consequences of a death incurred under her command just yet.

The moment she crosses the threshold, however, and I see her astride her white horse, I know that she is changed. I will not pretend that I knew her intimately before this, but the change in her is obvious. No… perhaps it is only obvious to me, because I have seen it in myself far more often that I have cared to recognize it.

She looks up, and her eyes scan the palace battlements, as though she is searching for someone. Her gaze crosses mine briefly, but there is no recognition there, and I know that she has not seen me. In that moment, however, as she touches me across the distance that separates us, I can define the quality that has taken root in her, and recognize its genesis within myself. It is that most dangerous of metamorphoses, for which dozens have died at my hands, and thousands at my command.

It is rebellion.


End file.
